The Maryland Academic Quiz Team is pleased to announce the 23rd annual Terrapin Invitational Tournament for Saturday, January 31st, 2009 to be held at our College Park, MD campus. This event will be a packet submission tournament at the avowedly enigmatic "regular" difficulty, meaning somewhere around regionals level. No mirrors are set in stone yet, although we are 75% likely to confirm a mirror at Northwestern University. We would love to have this mirrored elsewhere (particularly the West Coast, South/Southeast, and maybe Northeast. Ooh, and Canada), so please email Chris Ray at volkov3000@yahoo.com if you're interested.

The tournament will be head edited by Chris Ray, with Jeremy Eaton and possibly some other people also heavily working on the set. It's likely we will be seeking some cameo computer science appearances as well.

PRICING:

+$100 - Base Fee
-$50 - Packet submitted by Saturday, December 12th.
-$25 - Packet submitted by Saturday, December 26th.
+$0 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 3rd.
+$25 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 10th.
+$50 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 17th.
+$100 - No packet submitted and Westbrookian hatred at your existence. Seriously, you forfeit your guaranteed right to play in this event without a packet (unless you're a new school)
-$5 - Buzzer discount
-$10 - Competent moderator discount
+$10 - Formatting penalty for formatting your questions incorrectly (see formatting section below).
-$20 - Prize for the best unedited packet received in general, and by the best Division II (first two years play quizbowl) only team.

Minimum Fee Per Team: $40.

Any "Division II" teams (no players beyond their second year in quizbowl AND no players who have attended ACF nationals) may play without a packet, although it would be more than appreciated if they submitted one anyway. Guidelines for these teams are below:
-$50 - January 3rd
-$25 - January 10th

Please vary all your questions by time period, region of the world (when applicable) and genre. Also vary the type of question you ask. For example, do not write 5 literature tossups on 19th century British novelists. A better literature selection would include tossups on authors, works and characters, on American, British, and World literature, and on fiction, drama, and poetry.

Difficulty:

Please keep your tossups between ACF Fall and ACF Regionals level difficulty, inclusive (last year's TIT, for example, is a good barometer if you're unsure of what this means). When in question, err on the easier side. It is not a good idea to explore canon expansion (i.e. writing about things that have never come up at tournaments before) in your tossups.

Every bonus should have a clear easy, medium and hard part. Almost every team in the tournament should be converting the easy part of the bonus, while a little more than half of the teams should be converting the medium part. The hard part of a bonus should be able to be answered by those with in-depth knowledge in the field.

Question Length:

All of the following lengths apply to documents written in Word with 1 inch margins (change these from the default), and a 10 point Times New Roman font.

Final tossups will be between 6 and 8 lines long. However, we'd prefer that you submit tossups on the long side (or even over the 8 line limit), since it's always easier for us to get rid of clues that we don't like than to add additional clues by ourselves.

Bonus parts should be kept within reason. Do not write extremely lengthy leadins or bonus parts (try to keep them under 2 lines, generally). Also do not write extremely short bonuses or list bonuses, as these are typically not very interesting. The vast majority of your bonuses should be 10-10-10. Please do not write any 30-20-10 bonuses, as these really throw off the balance of the bonuses in a round. 5-10-15 bonuses are similarly bad and should be shunned, since they arbitrarily weight the hard part when in theory the bonus should have the same relative difficulty to all the others. However, Chris has an unusual tolerance for 10-5 bonuses and a few other creative point structures, so including one or two of these isn't out of the question, but don't do it more than that.

Formatting:

Please format your questions in the following matter:

1/1 Unfunny Meta Example Questions (reused to honor our recent alum):

The person involved in this event is starting a rumor that it was actually a planned occurrence to get himself mentioned in a meta question in Matt Weiner's canceled Chicago Open trash tournament. Immediately after this event occurred, one person was unable to identify Okazaki Fragments. It was preceded by Jeremy Eaton answering a tossup on time dilation. The person responsible for this event blamed not getting enough sleep the night before and the two hour drive to Richmond, but most of all just plain not paying attention. Occurring in a game against South Carolina at the 2007 VCU Open, it is now immortalized in the YTMND page Nude Descending a Gas Chamber. FTP, identify this action wherein Mike Bentley erroneously answered "The Armory Show" for "Auschwitz".
ANSWER: Worst Buzz (also acceptNude Descending a Gas Chamber before mentioned, Mike Bentley's Embarrassing Neg with The Armory Show on the Auschwitz Question at the 2007 Illinois Novice Tournament, and clear knowledge equivalents; do not accept just "Armory Show" or "Auschwitz")

Answer the following about a certain comic strip, FTPE.
[10] Like Chris Ray, the title character of this Dik Browne comic strip has red hair and a big beard, and is also illiterate and bathes only once a year.
ANSWER: Hagar the Horrible
[10] Using Wikipedia might erroneously lead you to believe that Hagar the Horrible was based on this play by Henrik Ibsen in which Sigurd defeats Hjardis by killing her sentinel, a white bear.
ANSWER: The Vikings at Helgeland
[10] If Jonathan Magin had his way, Hagar the Horrible and all other comic strips would be inspired by this Robert Louis Stevenson novel about some Scottish dude and his buried treasure.
ANSWER: The Master of Ballantrae

DO NOT USE ANY AUTOMATIC WORD FORMATTING EXCEPT FOR SMART QUOTES. Specifically, do not use any indentation or automatic numbering in your packets. Submit all packets in .doc or .rtf format please.

If questions are not correctly formatted (at the discretion of the editors), your packet will be returned for you to reformat. If you submit your packet at the deadline and it is rejected for formatting issues, you will be charged a $10 formatting fee (and asked to reformat the packet), but you will not have to pay any additional fees for missing the deadline.

Misc.:

As with all packet submission tournaments, questions must be blind to all other teams attending the tournament. Specifically, if a school is sending more than one team to the tournament, members of different teams should not know of each others' questions.

Please do not plagiarize questions. Do not copy direct passages and phrases from the sources you use to write questions. Additionally, do not write questions directly out of Wikipedia. While Wikipedia can be a useful source in finding preliminary information on a question, we encourage you to use more in-depth, scholarly and peer reviewed sources when writing your questions. Please see various question writing guides such as Jerry's guide for more information on where to find good sources for writing questions.
REGISTERING:

To register, please contact tournament director Jeremy Eaton at jay5006@aol.com. Please indicate how many teams you're brining and what discounts you think you apply for (such as the number of moderators and buzzers you're bringing). For the most part, we'll accept high school, non-affiliated and hybrid teams in additional to traditional college teams, but please contact me first.

Details on where the tournament will be held and when specifically registration will be will be announced closer to the date of the tournament.

Sunday Trash Tournament

We are very interested in running a Sunday trash event along with TIT. If you are creating such an event and would be interested in having it run at TIT (and maybe at its mirrors), please contact Chris Ray at volkov3000@yahoo.com. Options for this event include GARBAGE (assuming it isn't paired with an ACF event) or an ABD mirror, or something independently created like the MO trash event.

Looking forward to seeing you there,
Jeremy Eaton and Chris Ray

EDIT: Added promised subtitle

Last edited by DumbJaques on Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Oh, yeah: This tournament will have powers, because I think they're cool, they make statistics more interesting to look at, and with the demise of MLK I'm not sure if any mACF events will have them at all this year.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

+$100 - Base Fee
-$50 - Packet submitted by Saturday, December 12th.
-$25 - Packet submitted by Saturday, December 26th.
+$0 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 3rd.
+$25 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 10th.
+$50 - Packet submitted by Saturday, January 17th.
+$100 - No packet submitted and Westbrookian hatred at your existence. Seriously, you forfeit your guaranteed right to play in this event without a packet (unless you're a new school)
-$5 - Buzzer discount
-$10 - Competent moderator discount
+$10 - Formatting penalty for formatting your questions incorrectly (see formatting section below).
-$20 - Prize for the best unedited packet received in general, and by the best Division II (first two years play quizbowl) only team.

So when you say December 12th for the 50 dollar discount, do you really mean December 13th, or do you actually want it on the Friday? Additionally, will the powers just be before "for 10 points" or do we have to insert them where we feel they are warranted?

Yes, that should be the 13th and the 27th. To paraphrase the great one, no Christmas, slave over packets.

As this is not a PACE format tournament, just put them in when you feel they belong. Also, are you coming to this tournament? If so, awesome, but I don't know who you are so you probably aren't registered.

EDIT: Oh hey I think you're Andrew. NM.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Just a reminder that the first packet deadline is approaching. I have confirmed mirrors at Mississippi State and now Northwestern - I believe an announcement for the latter will be up shortly. The Northwestern site will be packet submission for teams who don't meet the division II requirement.

We are also actively seeking a west coast mirror - is there anyone who is interested in hosting this out there?

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

everyday847 wrote:Right, and generally players who won't mind playing solo say so and don't make a fuss if the TD asks them to. But, like, if they benefit a lot more from playing as a team, do we all ask them to take a hit just for a possible extra game? (Also consider that there might be a schedule possibility allowing more games from the field with the other parity, if you're talking about a one double or two singles situation. And those players will infrequently be of Eric's caliber, for example, I'd say a tournament is better off providing one game against a team of two pretty good, complementary players than two games against solo pretty good players--the former will be more competition and therefore probably more learning.

Fair enough; I'm not going to go arguing that the goal of "more games" should trump the goal of "better games" when and if the two are in conflict.

EDIT:
Never mind, I just found out Jerry's coming and Brown will just be there. I'd like to encourage any other Northeastern teams to come as well (as there will not be a Northeast TIT mirror). The logic iterated by Ryan and Jerry (no banning people like Laferbrook, Jonathan, or others interested in playing) but also no superteaming is what we'll go with. I originally intended this tournament to be open only in the sense that nobody would be barred from playing, and I will not bar people from non-novice tournaments I TD just because they aren't in school.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

I also would like to announce my literature packet to be read at lunch that will feature some pretty tough (which means VERY tough) difficulty. There'll be super powers and powers, so namely if you are:

Ike wrote:I also would like to announce my literature packet to be read at lunch that will feature some pretty tough (which means VERY tough) difficulty. There'll be super powers and powers, so namely if you are:

It's always been the policy of any tournament that was not officially an open to allow only a team composed of players from a single school to take the title. Also, in all cases that I am aware of, such teams have paid their entry fees out of pocket rather than out of club coffers.

Hey, I just noticed that I forgot to sub in our new distribution. I will post an amended distribution, but if you've already started writing yours, don't worry about it. But for anyone who hasn't written these questions yet, here's what we'd prefer to have:

Instead of 2/2 social science and 1/1 trash, current events, etc, we would prefer 1/1 social science, 1/1 geography and current events, and 1/1 trash and general knowledge.

Again, if you've already written your stuff, no sweat, and sorry if this means that those of you looking forward to a 10% social science tournament are disappointed.

Also, field bump. Please let me know if you're planning on coming, and more specifically if you're planning on writing a packet. I'm interested in hearing from UVA, UNC, William and Mary, CMU, and JS Reynolds.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Hey, I just wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow night is the +$25 deadline, so keep those packets coming in (thanks to Harvard, VCU, and half a thanks to team Josenthal for submissions).

For the record, I am expecting packets from the following teams based on registrations here and at Northwestern:

Brown
Penn
CWRU
Illinois
Chicago (could I get an update on the number of packets, if possible?)
Michigan
Rom

If you are listed here and are no longer planning on writing a packet, please let me know immediately. We are a little short on packets right now, so if anyone would be interested in freelancing a packet/half packet/some questions, we'd certainly appreciate it and owe you a favor.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Case wasn't planning on writing a packet, on account of the fact that we aren't required to given the line-up we plan on fielding. If you desperately need packets then I may be able to scrounge one together, although I'm not sure how good it would be.

Case wasn't planning on writing a packet, on account of the fact that we aren't required to given the line-up we plan on fielding. If you desperately need packets then I may be able to scrounge one together, although I'm not sure how good it would be.

The way things are shaping up, I think it would be a help, if you can manage. Perhaps something on the scale of a half-packet?

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

I had been operating on the penalty schedule of January 10 (+$0), January 17 (+$25), and January 24 (+$50) for packets submitted by teams entering the surprising but welcome mirror at Northwestern. Now that UIC Campus Programs cannot give us any travel funding, I might find some undergrads to send on the Blue, Red, and Purple lines to Evanston, but none of them have ever written any questions for ACF or anything else, as far as I know.

Get > 43 entries beyond the Daytona 500,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

Rom Masrour
president of RomNation at the races
2011 INDYCAR, 2012 NASCAR, 2012 GRAND-AM, & 2012 American Le Mans Series hard card holder
licensed crew member for car #51 in the 2011-2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series & car #15 in the 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series
"I'm glad you were at Kentucky for Ed's win instead of me."
"Rommy is better known in the paddock than half the drivers are."
"Drivers love Rommy even more than Rommy loves them."

I had been operating on the penalty schedule of January 10 (+$0), January 17 (+$25), and January 24 (+$50) for packets submitted by teams entering the surprising but welcome mirror at Northwestern. Now that UIC Campus Programs cannot give us any travel funding, I might find some undergrads to send on the Blue, Red, and Purple lines to Evanston, but none of them have ever written any questions for ACF or anything else, as far as I know.

Do you mean that you would not be coming, then (and hence, not writing a packet)? Or do you just mean you're adding someone to your team. I'm confused.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Ok, so since I in fact received no packets for last night's deadline, I think I'd like to send out a general plea for a few freelance contributions. I'm hopeful that everyone who promised a packet will send one by Saturday, but we'd certainly appreciate not having a 9-round tournament if something breaks down. I believe Jonathan Magin, despite his incredibly substantial writing load, is trying to work on part of a packet for us - if a few more people would be interested in submitting a handful of questions, we'd very much appreciate it.

Of course, I'd appreciate even more if people could get me their packets sooner than Saturday - I know it makes no difference in the fee schedule, but it'd certainly make our lives easier. If not, hey, so it goes - I certainly live by the wire on packet deadlines myself.

Thanks to everyone who confirmed their packet is coming in. Penn, you guys confirm you're working on yours?

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

DumbJaques wrote:Ok, so since I in fact received no packets for last night's deadline, I think I'd like to send out a general plea for a few freelance contributions. I'm hopeful that everyone who promised a packet will send one by Saturday, but we'd certainly appreciate not having a 9-round tournament if something breaks down. I believe Jonathan Magin, despite his incredibly substantial writing load, is trying to work on part of a packet for us - if a few more people would be interested in submitting a handful of questions, we'd very much appreciate it.

Of course, I'd appreciate even more if people could get me their packets sooner than Saturday - I know it makes no difference in the fee schedule, but it'd certainly make our lives easier. If not, hey, so it goes - I certainly live by the wire on packet deadlines myself.

Thanks to everyone who confirmed their packet is coming in. Penn, you guys confirm you're working on yours?

Right now it is Kevin Leahy plus whover Kevin Leahy manages to drag along and/or abduct from a back alley, supplemented possibly by anyone who has a proficient showing when I play intoxicated bar trivia at The Tombs tonight.

EDIT: Hey, if you have his email, I bet Kevin would like to have Andrew's contact info as he embarks upon his wayward team-founding adventures. Kevin, you should post your email here or something.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

DumbJaques wrote:Ok, so since I in fact received no packets for last night's deadline, I think I'd like to send out a general plea for a few freelance contributions. I'm hopeful that everyone who promised a packet will send one by Saturday, but we'd certainly appreciate not having a 9-round tournament if something breaks down. I believe Jonathan Magin, despite his incredibly substantial writing load, is trying to work on part of a packet for us - if a few more people would be interested in submitting a handful of questions, we'd very much appreciate it.

Of course, I'd appreciate even more if people could get me their packets sooner than Saturday - I know it makes no difference in the fee schedule, but it'd certainly make our lives easier. If not, hey, so it goes - I certainly live by the wire on packet deadlines myself.

Thanks to everyone who confirmed their packet is coming in. Penn, you guys confirm you're working on yours?

I can provide some questions, probably not an entire packet, for this tournament. It will be on the order of half a packet or something, but probably won't conform to a half packet distribution (i.e. you can use these questions in mutliple packets). I'll try to send what I have done by this weekend.

Chris, I meant that I have no teammates from UIC yet. I am afraid that I could not possibly submit a packet until the Saturday evening of January 24, at +$50 for the Northwestern Mirror and too late for entrants competing at UMCP apparently. This weekend, I will be too busy driving to Ann Arbor alone, competing in their ACF Winter and early Penn Bowl TRASH Mirror, and driving back to Chicago to finish my packet by then.

Sorry for the vagueness,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

Rom Masrour
president of RomNation at the races
2011 INDYCAR, 2012 NASCAR, 2012 GRAND-AM, & 2012 American Le Mans Series hard card holder
licensed crew member for car #51 in the 2011-2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series & car #15 in the 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series
"I'm glad you were at Kentucky for Ed's win instead of me."
"Rommy is better known in the paddock than half the drivers are."
"Drivers love Rommy even more than Rommy loves them."

DumbJaques wrote:Right now it is Kevin Leahy plus whover Kevin Leahy manages to drag along and/or abduct from a back alley, supplemented possibly by anyone who has a proficient showing when I play intoxicated bar trivia at The Tombs tonight.

EDIT: Hey, if you have his email, I bet Kevin would like to have Andrew's contact info as he embarks upon his wayward team-founding adventures. Kevin, you should post your email here or something.

This puts us at 19-20 teams, which is great but is into the area where staff and scheduling starts to become something of a concern. So, I really need to hear from teams that are on the "maybe" list right now (Swarthmore, Duke, Pitt, etc.) as soon as you know. Anyone who's been planning to come to TIT for the last six months but hasn't told me should also consider rethinking their strategy, so as to make sure we can accommodate everyone.

Penn, if you guys figure out whether it's 1 or 2, let me know.

On a similar note, if there are any moderators out there in the audience who would be interested in helping us out, we have some of the finest pizza ordering abilities in the state and would be eternally grateful.

Last edited by DumbJaques on Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

DumbJaques wrote:
This puts us at 18-19 teams, which is great but is into the area where staff and scheduling starts to become something of a concern.
On a similar note, if there are any moderators out there in the audience who would be interested in helping us out, we have some of the finest pizza ordering abilities in the state and would be eternally grateful.

As usual, I am available to read or whatever if someone from central VA would transport me. (or pull strings and get me a driver's license a week early)

DumbJaques wrote:On a similar note, if there are any moderators out there in the audience who would be interested in helping us out, we have some of the finest pizza ordering abilities in the state and would be eternally grateful.

I'd already signed on for Prison Bowl, but if you can offer Guy a sweet enough deal to convince him to release me... well, I'll help wherever I'm most needed.

DumbJaques wrote:
This puts us at 18-19 teams, which is great but is into the area where staff and scheduling starts to become something of a concern.
On a similar note, if there are any moderators out there in the audience who would be interested in helping us out, we have some of the finest pizza ordering abilities in the state and would be eternally grateful.

As usual, I am available to read or whatever if someone from central VA would transport me. (or pull strings and get me a driver's license a week early)

You're welcome to catch a ride up with George and I, if you don't mind sticking around for the comics tournament after.

Dan Goff
HSQB sysadmin

Virginia Tech '13
South Carolina '15
and a couple other places
Not Thomas Dale HS

So the final deadline has come and gone and I have received only one packet (from Columbia). I understand people are still recovering from playing/writing winter, so I'm hopeful I'll be getting stuff by tonight. I really need to hear about the *specific* status of outstanding packets/half packets asap if they aren't coming in tonight though, so I can plan for the tournament and figure out what to do.

I'll keep an updated list of received packets here:

VCU
Harvard
Ike
Columbia

Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE

Sorry to post this late in the game, but I am interested in playing this. Since this is not the sort of thing I want to solo at, and I have no idea whether Daniel is interested in playing the main event, please contact me if you are looking for someone else to play on your team. My email is dg61@comcast.net.

Douglas Graebner, Walt Whitman HS 10, Uchicago 14
"... imagination acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid."-Sir James Frazer,The Golden Bough